Beautiful winter days

Well what wonderful weather we have experienced the last few days in Guernsey, those lovely crisp and bright winter day with colourful sunrise and sunset skies and bright stars in the evening. Love it! It has certainly been an action-packed week.

I managed my first swim in the sea of the Year last Wednesday. It was high tide and a bright and clear morning down at Petit Bot and really there was no excuse, especially as someone else turned up while I was getting changed, which was a good thing as it made me swim for longer than I would have done on my own. It was cold!!
I repeated the experience again on Sunday, down at Vazon this time, but it was really cold and I got a bit freaked out about all the sea weed and being down there on my own - ridiculous really, what on earth is there to be fearful about!!

On Wednesday evening I played my first netball game for over 7 years, it was not long after I started Yoga that I stopped playing netball, which had actually been my passion up until then. It was hard work but so much fun! I ended up playing centre in a first division game, which means I had to run around lots, and could barely move the next two days - not convinced this exercise malarkey is really that good for you!!

E bought me a House and Homes magazine, which has this section in it about decluttering. It is not that I was conscious of needing to declutter the house, but clearly a seed had already been sown, because on Saturday that is exactly what I did. The thing is, we helped someone to move house the weekend before and that made me very aware of the fact we tend to hold on to lots of stuff that just takes up space.

I finally retrieved my book cases and all my Yoga and holistic books from storage and unpacked them all in the Yoga room which I am blessed to have in the cottage. Wow, how cool to finally have access to all these books. I must admit I did something I have never done before, I actually sorted through the books I no longer reference with the idea of giving them to students who may be interested in reading them themselves - I don't see the point in storing books in a book case that you are unlikely to ever read or reference, better to let someone else benefit from their knowledge instead.

I sorted through all my old files and paperwork and threw out stuff that I no longer need, so much paper, such a waste, although I did a recycling run so hopefully that balances things out a little. We took some old furniture down to the reclamation Yard, what a cool place, I got a new lamp which someone had thrown away and yet there is nothing wrong with it. I am always amazed by the number of people rummaging around, such a great way to recycle and give others the opportunity to benefit from those things you no longer want yourself. It is refreshing to declutter, just changes the energy, not so much stuff getting in the way, letting go of the past to make more room for the present.

E and I managed a bike ride on Sunday around the lanes in St Martins and St Andrews. He took me to places I have never been before, all so cool and no one else walking about, I discovered this wonderful lane with stunning views of the Islands and some wonderful property, called Gypsy Lane. I love to get off the beaten path over here in Guernsey as we are truly blessed with some amazing views, and also it tends to be so quiet - I wonder if it is because the cliffs etc are directly on our doorstep so we don't always feel to get out on them. Such a shame as they are a gem for Guernsey - mind you the less people on them the quieter for those who do use them!

Willow is doing well out in Australia and Ross is a very proud Dad, ever so sweet and I can't wait to have a cuddle in March when we visit.

It was another busy class last night - well done to everyone for sticking with it, really good practice, lots of integrity. I look forward to seeing those who are taking their time to get going this year, it is difficult to doubt the benefit of a regular Yoga practice.

The sun enters Aquarius this week, see this link for further information http://realastrologers.com/weekly-forecast-january-16-sun-enters-aquarius?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Realastrologerscom+%28realastrologers.com%29

Happy week!

xx

Full moon, full moon

It was the full moon yesterday and what a joy it was to watch it rising before I taught the first evening Yoga class of the Year.

Thank you to all of you who made the class, I believe we had a record number in the room, so much so that we had the windows and door open, unheard of in January usually, what with all this mild weather.

After class I joined Chris and Hayley for a full moon get together, lovely food, great company and the full moon energy, I slept better than I have done all week last night...phew, I hadn't quite appreciated what an "up in the air" start it has been to the new year, everything getting jumbled up and now coming down to land again!

Back at home I stood in the garden under the moon's rays, a wolfing moon last night, and enjoyed the clear skies and the stars shining over head. You can't help but feel the "pick up" of energy and delight in the wonder of nature's creation.

This weather continues to fascinate me. There are primroses growing on the hedgerow on the walk into town from here. And the daffodils are coming out in the front garden, and still there are holly berries on the holly tree. It is all a reminder to go with the flow and adapt to the conditions presented.

Anyhow enough of my waffle, happy practising everyone.

xx

Welcome Willow, my beautiful niece xxxxxx

What a way to start the New Year, all those winds and in the midst of the chaos becoming an auntie! A massive congratulations to my brother, Ross, and his partner, Star, who have brought my beautiful niece, Willow Ash, into the world on 5th January in the utopia that is Byron Bay, Australia.

It is funny how life works. I first visited Byron in my mid twenties on my first trip to Australia, a trip that I had dreamt about since I was 10 years old. I didn't know it at that time, when I was 10 that is, but Australia has played such a pivotal role in my life...I guess on some level the calling was there.

So my friend Hayley and I went out to Australia for 2.5 weeks and for some reason or another noticed Byron in the Lonely Planet and made a trip from Sydney. I was a finance girl back then but was blown away by the alternative and hippy side to life in Byron. We indulged in tarot card readings and made the most of the sunshine. Back then I was not really aware of Yoga.

I became aware a few years later when I was working in Auckland and came across a Yoga studio and got as far as the front door before I got scared away thinking I wasn't flexible enough to attend the class. A year later and I found myself in Freemantle near Perth, Australia, with my brother, and I came across an alternative shop and brought my first meditation book.

Roll on a year later and after running the London Marathon, I knew I needed to do something to release my aching body and someone mentioned Yoga and so with my brother making sure I went in the door this time, the two of us began our Yoga journey together in St Martins hall here in Guernsey with the wonderful Ness. I was hooked immediately and started enticing friends along with me so that Vicki started attending (and has since gone on to train as a yoga teacher) and Claire and a plethora of other friends.

A year later, when I was 29 and frustrated by my finance life, I decided all I wanted to do was take time out to travel, practice Yoga and write about it. This timing coincided with Ross deciding he too wanted to take a break from his pressured IT job on Guernsey so we sold our house and while he went off to Australia with his girlfriend at that time, I decided to go out to Australia on my own. And strangely while I didn't really appreciate that Byron was a bit of a Yoga utopia at that time, I knew I needed to go there and the Yoga presented itself.

Ross joined me and while I immersed myself in the Yoga scene (strangely with John Ogilvie who was married to a Guernsey lady (and more strangely I now live next to her brother here in Guernsey!) at a studio right next to the hostel I was staying) while Ross immersed himself in the wonderful surf that Byron offers. We both started surfing when I was 14 and he was 12, our Dad has been a keen surfer in his earlier years and for his 40th Mum had bought him a longboard and as he got back into surfing both Ross and I got into it too.

A year later and I found myself back in Byron, for 5 months this time, undertaking my Yoga teacher training with the wonderfully inspiring Lance Schuler and doing a brief apprenticeship with John. By this time Ross was living with one of our mutual friends (whose Mum was my Mum's best friend at University and who is one of my best friends as life happens) and working in London completely at a loose end having broken up with his girlfriend and not really knowing what to do next.

I will never forget the conversation I had with him one day, telling him to just come out and join me in Byron. Of course he was resistant at the time, couldn't see the wood through the trees but I was in that world where everything is possible. As it happened our surrogate little sister, Claire, (also a surfer who grew up with us in the same clos here in Guernsey) was coming out to join me for 6 weeks over Christmas in between jobs and I suspect this swung it for Ross.

So the three of us lived together in a room in the hostel at Belongil on the beach in Byron enjoying the Yoga, the surfing and the alternative life generally. My best friend, Lou, and her husband Dave were travelling around the world at that time and joined us in Byron for a few weeks. What utter bliss, my most favourite people in the world (bar my folks) all together in Byron enjoying its energy.

However all good things must come to an end. By this time I was cleaning in the hostel to cover my accommodation costs and while a part of me wanted to stay in Byron another part was homesick for Guernsey. A combination of the wake-up call of Lance telling me to go home and start teaching and my Dad also saying the same thing made me realise it was time to move on.

So I followed Claire back to Guernsey and while she married her South African husband I started Be inspired and began my Yoga teaching journey. Ross stayed in Byron and got back into Yoga. In fact so much so that he signed up for a Yoga teacher training course with John, which Star had also signed up to!

I went to visit him for 6 weeks after his course and stayed with him in the hostel where he was still living and now working himself. I met Star that trip too. Little did I know that they would end up getting together and while he did come home for a few months and worked with Dad and I setting up Spearpoint Limited, an investment and wealth management company where I am currently working again (plus my friend and fellow Yoga teacher Vicki, too, many coincidences!), he returned to Byron and spent a few years teaching Yoga and working in a cafe.

I actually went out again two and a half years ago to visit Ross and meet my friend Hayley, with whom I had initially visited Byron before we travelled onto Hawaii and from there San Francisco with Hannah, my best friend with whom Ross had lived in London. Far too many connections and coincidences!) In any event Ross and Star were very settled by then, both teaching Yoga at John's centre and enjoying their life in Byron together. Very much together and how lovely for me to have a connection with an Australian kindred spirit, wiccan, yogic, female and my brother...

A year later they both came to Guernsey with Star's daughter, Adena, after travelling through Asia and visiting all the friends I have made in Nepal (where I have spent many months, my parents visiting too) and now here they are back in Byron, Ross now working back in IT in Brisbane and Star teaching pregnancy Yoga and trained as a doula, and creating the wonderful Willow.

I am not sure the reason I feel to write all this, other than to put in words how life is full of such incredible connections. Plus of course how Yoga has shaped my life and that of Star and Ross both on and indeed off the mat in many places around the world. I believe the incredible healing energy of Byron plays a role in all of this - I was once told that Byron (the most easterly point in mainland Australia) was the place that many women went to give birth...it has that energy of healing and creation, which perhaps is the reason so many people feel drawn to visit. It is a bubble, but I just wish it wasn't so far away!

Still one adjusts to life lived beyond time and space. My best friends are currently spread all over the world. Hayley is now living in Perth, Australia, Hannah in New York, Lou in Edinburgh and my other lovely friend, Sam, is in Canada. So it means I have many opportunities to travel the world to see those I love.

So while I am going to New York to visit Hannah later in the month and indulge in some wonderful New York yoga (second time in a year, how lucky am I?!) I have to wait until March to cuddle Willow when my parents get to visit Byron for the first time and I take Ewan with me, his second visit as it strangely happens!

So you see Yoga offers so much potential beyond one's daily asana practise on the mat. It shapes our lives. It provides us with the ability to cope with so much change. I am forever indebted for the divine guidance that has shaped, and continues to shape, my life and the lives of those around me. We have all been touched by its magic and that of Reiki too of course.

And onto Reiki. Over the last few days with the winds blowing madly outside I have channelled Reiki to a few clients and whether it is complete coincidence or not (not that I believe in coincidences, they are perhaps nudges from the Universe)every client has bee totally ungrounded. It feels to me like the wind has uprooted all of us, a little like so many trees, so that we are all hanging in the air. And now it is calming we are all coming back to land with all the cobwebs blown away - I see it in the events of people's lives around me, mine included, it has been so unsettling and yet so cleansing...in the long run, believe me. This is the year of reckoning, the year of change...we have been told this for a few years now, now we have to accept the changes...

But I have to say I find this whole weather thing fascinating. A French student was telling me how the French Mistral sends people mad so that suicide rates increase and another told me how you have dog days in New York where it gets so hot and the beer can't quite quench the thirst and the wife is waffling on in your ear and the domestic violence rates increase...Little do we realise how the elements are affecting our behaviour...

So it is the first full moon of the year on Monday. I am praying for clear weather to embrace her energy and be mesmerised by her glory and cleanse my crystals! It is also an ormer tide here on Guernsey too, but I can't bring myself to get involved in that, love the concept of being in the elements but I get bored of the cold easily and can't kill the poor things in any event. Still I am looking forward to celebrating the full moon with Chris and Hayley after Yoga that evening.

So sit tight everyone, enjoy the moment, be kind to yourself and the world, pray, live presently and enjoy what you have without worrying about what you don't have.

As Snowpatrol sing, "we are the light, we are the light, we are the light, we are the light...".

I love you Ross. And I am so incredibly honoured to be Willow's Godmother, I shall do all I can to support her spiritual development. Love to you too Star, for making my brother so happy and spreading the light a little further. xx

So let's all keep practicing and dreaming and letting the Yogic and Reiki energy flow.

xxxx

A storming way to start the New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone, I hope this year continues to bring much joy, peace, laughter, love and light!

Ewan and I celebrated the New Year in France with our friends Tessa and Carl, their children and a few of their friends on their farm in Normandy.

It was a wonderful way to end 2011 and begin 2012. Admittedly the ferry crossings were not their best, delayed on the way there so we didn't arrive into the farm until a couple of minutes before midnight (just in time to spend the last few minutes of Carl's birthday with him!) and delayed significantly on the way home so that we actually had a few unexpected hours in Jersey!

Still all good fun and an incredibly relaxing and laid back way to start what I hope will be a relaxing year ahead. While everyone went off to visit puppies on the morning of New Year's Eve, I was fortunate to enjoy an hour or so in the farmhouse on my own where it was just so beautifully quiet, practicing Yoga on my mat in front of wonderful views of the farm land and the rolling green landscape punctuated with trees in the distance. Bliss.



I meditated on those aspects of 2011 I wanted to leave behind as well as considering my intentions for the year ahead. I did my own Reiki burning bowl ceremony, improvised of course, the paper went up in the log burning fire rather than a bowl itself, but the intention and energy was still there and I look forward to manifesting those intetions during the New Year. They say this is the Year of reckoning after all.

Not that this means the end of the world per se, more so the end of the world as it is currently lived - a shift in attitude threfore, which will make life feel different, but not in a fearful way. I mean we have started to see this already with the whole financial crisis and our attitude to debt changing. Plus of course the fact so many of us are going back to basics, and not just us alternative hippy yogi types, but society generally. So many now grow their own veg and recycle in their homes, let alone have some consideration to how they spend their money these days. I guess it is simply a paradigm shift in our perception of life...I find it very exciting and shall be monitoring it closely over the year ahead.


So we celebrated New Year in the farmhouse, both the French New Year and the British one too! We had brought lobsters, crab and some Guernsey bread with us and Tessa had arranged a huge seafood platter plus her homemade goat's cheese with caviar and smoked salmon and then others brought food too, so it was one big fest washed down with lots of bubbles. Bliss!! I thoroughly enjoyed muyself, despite feeling a little tired the next day!!

New Year's Day and it was still raining. Talk about cleansing!! We managed a walk during a brief break from the rain and went to visit one of the river's near to where Tessa and Carl live - wow, it was certainly flowing with some power and actually the next day when we were driving back to St Malo, we noticed quite a bit of flooding around the river in Ducey. Seems like the heavens have opened the way into New Year.


We managed to fit in some reading time, which I love, a couple of inspiring Yoga magazines and this great book Carl has on Yoga so that I was able to be led by anopther during my New Year self practice. I am reading a Yoga therapy book in the Desikachar tradition, fascinating stuff, very inspiring, as I love to try new approaches to my practice but am limited somewhat in access to teachers living on an Island, so I am always delighted to find books which become my teacher.

So now here we are back at home and now of course the winds, blowing away all those cobwebs and blowing us into the New Year!!

So a huge thank you to Tessa, Carl, Evie and Ollie for having us to stay and also to Ewan for looking after me on those stormy seas.

Happy New Year, may it be full of love, light, magic and miracles for all of us this year.

xxxxI